Agree, but just as retail business strategies require SOMEONE to think about the on-the-ground processes, I think that SOMEONE needs to think about the technology under the covers of a business technology initiative. I don't buy the notion that low priced, reliable technologies aren't desirable. For many of us, DIY is not desirable, but it's a mistake to think of open source as DIY. As I said above, configuration of a commercial solution can be just as time and cost intensive as an open source solution.

You still have to engage in a tremendous amount of architecture & config even if you don't pay for the controller. The question is, if an open source solution can be templated and easily deployed (like Apache for the web), why not do it and avoid the capex of the proprietary controller? It is unclear whether open source controllers will be "an awful lot of time and money". What is clear to me is that the meta- and management layer -- whether you use a proprietary or open source solution for the controller layer -- creates ongoing value and therefore is easy to justify as an ongoing expense. The controller? Not so much.

As a former CIO, I would always fear my techy team wandering in a day dream of shinny objects (or cloudy objects). Cloud management is more than technology. It is an opportunity for I.T. and its business customers to rethink how they mutually deliver business value. Shiny objects, low priced open stack or build it yourself are not business strategies that build legendary companies.

You've hit on the most important element to a successful cloud strategy - cloud management. A good management layer preserves choice in the infrastructure layer. From what I've seen, it's still a tremendous effort to get any of the open source cloud distros running in production in an enterprise environment. There's a clear choice as there has always been - pay nothing for the controller and spend an awful lot of time and money in customizing it and getting it to work, or pay for the controller and trust that the vendor will be able to deliver.

As InformationWeek Government readers were busy firming up their fiscal year 2015 budgets, we asked them to rate more than 30 IT initiatives in terms of importance and current leadership focus. No surprise, among more than 30 options, security is No. 1. After that, things get less predictable.